How Leaders Cultivate Spirituality in the Workplace: What the Research Shows

Abstract

In the early 1990s, Tom Peters connected spirituality with the workplace and leadership in a negative fashion by saying, When the talk turns to the spiritual side of leadership, I mostly want to run. It should be enough if I work like hell, respect my peers, customers and suppliers and perform with verve, imagination, efficiency and good humour. Please don't ask me to join the Gregorian Chant Club too. (Renesch & DeFoore, 1998, p. 13) However, this attempt to marginalize spirituality and leadership misses the potential to address a fundamental and deeper need that spiritual leadership could address. Beneath the contemporary language of enhancing workplace productivity lie deeper questions about where we are going, how we will survive, what really matters and what we surrender (Briskin, 1996, p. 28). This past year, I completed a study that focused on the experiences and of five adult educators and several of their colleagues as they addressed the spiritual dimensions of their workplace. Specifically, how they connected their own spirituality to their roles within their organizations and how their workplace's commitment and ability to address the spiritual dimensions affected them. As Briskin indicated, it became apparent that the spiritual dimensions of the workplace apply to all of its aspects. In addition, addressing these fundamental and deeper dimensions requires both organizational and personal spiritual leadership. It is important to understand the spiritual dimensions of the workplace. Despite the variety of organizations and roles of adult educators within this study, there emerged a surprising consistency about the key tenets of a spirituality-infused organization: * People have a sense of vocation and passion about their work. * The workplace culture encourages creativity and risk taking through training and career development. * The workplace balances both work and home by having supports and programs in place which foster outside commitments. * Base line wages and benefits are in place, which demonstrate the organization's willingness to invest in its workforce. * There is a sense of community both within and beyond the workplace, which is reflected in its operational and decision-making practices. * The articulated values of the organization are infused into its day-to-day practice. While all of the adult educators and their colleagues expressed similar definitions of a spiritually infused organization, there was some variance in their willingness to implement its spiritual dimensions. One of the fundamental reasons for this variance can be linked to the varying leadership styles within the organizations. To demonstrate this, I will contrast the two work settings of two adult educators within this study. Both Stephanie and Mick work for large high-tech corporations who have both grown exponentially over the past several years. Stephanie's organization incorporates many of the best practices of spirituality outlined above, despite constant change and uncertainty resulting from rapid growth. All levels of employee, from the CEO through to department managers, believe creating a spiritual culture is central to their mandate. They have both the internal and external leadership qualities needed in order to support a spiritually infused workplace. Internal leadership qualities reflect an internal attitude shift away from a traditional view of leadership. In Mick's workplace, the importance of internal and external leadership qualities can be seen in their absence, which revealed a setting that was not consistently committed to the best practices of a spiritual culture. While Mick's organization identified its values and outlined strategies to implement these values, it had yet to begin the transition process. I sensed that senior leadership in Mick's organization lacked the desire to implement the values that the employees had articulated. …